Salisbury Cathedral and Old Sarum
 

During the summer, I took a drive across Wiltshire to the historic city of Salisbury. It was a beautiful sunny day and I had not explored the city centre for many years, so parked up and headed off on foot towards the cathedral.

After strolling down the bustling high street, I passed under the arched entrance to the grounds and into the large park surrounding the majestic Salisbury Cathedral. There were hundreds of people milling around, with a mix of locals eating their lunches or resting on the park benches and tourists like me snapping away with cameras and videos. The sheer size of the cathedral is awe inspiring and left me wondering just how many stone masons it had taken to build.

I hadn’t been inside the cathedral before so took this opportunity to wander around the cloisters, read about its original cathedral at Old Sarum and visit the chapter house to see one of only four surviving copies of the Magna Carta. The nave is very impressive, not only for its sheer size and decoration, but also to read the inscriptions on the tombs of the great and the good who are buried here.

Having read with interest the history of Old Sarum, I decided to head back to my car and travel the short distance out of the city to visit the remains of the original iron age settlement. It is now managed by English Heritage, but there is a free car park and the grounds can be explored without having to pay any entrance fee, which only applies if you want to visit the remains of the keep and palace.

Walking around the remains of the ramparts and the old cathedral foundations has a very mystical feeling. It is easy to envisage how this once great fortified hill settlement became a favourite for Roman, Saxon and Norman chieftans. Looking south, the new cathedral’s spire rises high above the streets of Salisbury, but when Old Sarum was occupied none of that existed so the view would have been very different.

For more information about things to do in Salisbury and across Wiltshire, please visit my website at http://www.neverbebored.co.uk/things...salisbury.html